Within the house of innocence
there are no mirrors,
no telltale inkling of the truth.
The spin of the disc jockey,
the alluring call of the
near-naked model with the
fabulous jugs
whose nipples entice with a
suggestive glance as she
mounts the hood of a honda accord
urging the hapless to buy with abandon,
the clearasil politician with
flatulence in his pants
constructing a doomsday device
within his agile brain
who tells quite another story
stitched together with
lies and misinformation,
all the nimble admen and procurers of
bottled pleasure and innocuous daydreams
designed to suppress rage and contain despair,
armies of fabricators of digital delights
carving a prodigious mountain of bits
into the essential pabulum of the age,
all occupied with the formidable task of
erecting a wondrous tower of imagery and
delusion that bears no resemblance to existence.
Within the breast of every human
beats a heart designed to live,
to move about the planet,
to breath whether the air be fetid or pure,
to gather energy in bits of flesh and fruit and
root and leaf and stem,
to penetrate the core of desire and
conjoin egg with itinerant seed to
sustain the species.
Within the boney skull lies the
a fabulous organ crafted from
millions of years of practice and experience
honed from diligence and potent error,
assembled from happenstance and the
incessant greed for life.
Within the core of this fabulous
piece of organic magic
resides a gifted sculptor
armed with wondrous circuitry
that distils from the chaos
of the flowing universe
a sense of order and purpose,
the formidable idea of god
who makes all things possible and
helps contain the ever-present shadow of
inescapable mortality,
the need for language and the
idea of civilization that flows from it.
At the helm of this neuronal wonder
rides the captain
constantly compelling his minions to
act upon matter and
extract from incessant desire
and petulant curiosity
a purpose for existence.
Civilizations have come and gone,
have endured the jaugenot from
lofty beginnings,
through anguish and confusion,
from fire to ash
finally ending in ruin.
Beneath the rich panoply
of all the raucous theories
regarding divine purpose,
underneath the perpetual shell game
of contrived enjoyment and
the lofty edifice of indifference and
delusion,
at the very core of
sublime pleasure,
and inevitable suffering
lies a simple truth,
existence.
Idle self-proclaimed truth tellers
fill the airways with vast yet
shadowy edifices of pure nonsense.
Beneath the arch of the
endless cosmos filled with
rapturous starshine,
humans convene at the marble factory
where conformity is fashioned and
idleness constrained
At the marble factory
within great expanses of real estate
under a magnificent domed sky
a bland facsimile of the sun
is projected to fill the space with a
cold and unforgiving light.
At the marble factory
there is no place to hide,
there is no place to gather and recollect,
there is only an endless array of machines
that hum incessantly and beep and flash,
that manufacture things
we are compelled to need and
urged to acquire.
At the marble factory,
data is collected, digested, regurgitated
and reshaped to ultimately create
the most magnificent machine of all.
It is called by many names,
it is referred to in hushed tones
and regarded with great pride by the
master builders,
it was built to be indestructible,
it was contrived to sustain itself,
it was forged from illusory materials
to contain and perpetuate and
world of shadows and delusion.
Life has been likened to a
perpetual game where
truth is obscured by wily magic,
life has become a peep show
where the participants can only watch
but never touch or feel the essence of
passion or desire.
There is an endless queue at the pawn shop where
the present moment is exchanged for
innocuous glitter and happiness delivered
in an empty bottle bound for the recycler.
Yet, when this fabulous warehouse
of concoctions falls apart from
lack of substance,
the vast terrain of existence remains
strewn with chaos and desire,
passion and suffering,
pleasure and longing,
where the essence of matter and time
cavort with naked truth
that does not abide illusion.
